As entertaining as it is to conduct autopies of unloved and/or forgotten funnybook properties, it’s also important to step back periodically and reflect upon some favorite comics and characters of mine that never got the attention and love they rightly deserved. This is why I set aside the month of December for Nobody Else’s Favorites, a holiday season flip of Armagideon Time’s most popular feature.
We’re going to kick things off this year with The Liberty Project…
…a short-lived series co-created by Kurt Busiek and James W. Fry and published by Eclipse from 1987 through 1988.
The Liberty Project was a government initative designed to provide vocational rehabiliation for young superhumans who had fallen afoul of the law. In exchange for their services, the team’s members were given an opportunity to straighten themselves out before they fell into habitual supervillainy.
Though the core concept — supercriminals turned government agents — echoed that of post-Legends revamp of the Suicide Squad, The Liberty Project was a entirely different beast in terms of tone.
Where DC’s rightfully praised classic was a black-ops affair rooted in the gritty and conspiratorial realm of late-1980s geopolitics, The Liberty Project took its cues from the Roy Thomas/Chris Claremont model for superteam books. Its tone was lighter — yet not without substance — and both the team dynamics and narrative hewed closer to the “classic” models associated with Silver Age Avengers and Bronze Age “new” X-Men tales…as well as anticipating Busiek’s later work on the Thunderbolts franchise.
Take a diverse set of personalities — from smirking delinquent (Slick) to conscientious penitent (Crackshot) to hot-headed wild child (Cimarron) to anti-authoritarian hothead (Burnout) — and play them off each other as empathetic and hardnosed parental figures attempt to impose some form of order upon their charges.
Throw in some semi-omnipotent alien adversaries, a problematic new teammate and a bunch of exploding police cars, and you’ve got some fun reading that doesn’t reinvent the wheel as much as put an engaging spin on it.
Though The Liberty Project was ostensibly part of Eclipse’s abortive attempts to establish a shared superheroic universe, the actual bleedthough was limited to a handful of passing references…
…a single guest appearance by Valkyrie from Airboy, and the team’s involvement in the baffling Total Eclipse crossover event. (At the time, I didn’t think twice about the fact that an indie publisher would feel misguidedly obligated to ape the Big Two’s marketing stunts. In hindsight, however, it makes me profoundly depressed.)
Though a return of the Liberty Project was teased at the end of the in the eight (and final) issue of their ongoing series, the team’s sole subsequent appearance — not including the Total Eclipse nonsense — was in the Busiek-helmed TeenAgents series from Topps’ “Kirbyverse” imprint in 1993. It was a pleasant surprise (as was TeenAgents in general), but was more of a wistful sendoff than a promise for the future.
There were murmurings, fueled by the fannish will to speculate, that the team would pop up in Busiek’s Astro City franchise, but nothing came of it. It was for the best, really. The past may be prologue, but perhaps not as literally as some folks tend to assume it to be.
The Liberty Project is very much an early work, a testbed for trying out ideas and refining creative voices. It’s also a fun read full of dated fashions, old school super-melodrama, and enough rough-edged charm to thaw my frozen little excuse for a heart.
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December 3rd, 2012 - 6:10 pm
For the record, I enjoy NEF just as much as NF. It’s charming, and fills me with the sentiment of the season.
December 3rd, 2012 - 8:33 pm
I concur with Cary.
And Liberty Project is a great comic with which to start. I remember reading this series, along with other Eclipse series that aped the Big 2 superhero types, like Prowler, I felt I was supposed to like but did not care much for. Busiek’s handle on character interactions and tone made for some fun comics. I was bummed when the end for this one came…
December 3rd, 2012 - 9:03 pm
This was one of the indicators that Busiek had the potential to do something interesting – I’m pretty sure he’d mainly been doing fill-ins prior to this series.
About Comics reprinted the entire run in B&W a few years ago – nice crisp reproduction, IIRC. It’s still available from Amazon, and I’d imagine the About Comics website would be happy to sell anyone a copy as well.
Fry’s art on this series reminded me of Richard Howell at the time, which is a positive in my book.
December 3rd, 2012 - 9:21 pm
I absolutely loved The Liberty Project when it appeared… I remember drawing the characters at class! I was very dissapointed when it was cancelled that soon.
December 4th, 2012 - 3:22 am
Something Kurt Busiek related? I officially want to see more of this.
December 4th, 2012 - 7:55 am
I read one or two of them- not bad! I liked the resemblence to Suicide Squad, as that one was a favorite of mine.
December 4th, 2012 - 7:59 am
that one guy looks a little too much like Vibe, though, doesn’t he?
December 4th, 2012 - 8:24 am
That one shouting the team’s name seems to be the offspring of the X-Men’s Havok and “Dark Side Of The Moon”.
December 4th, 2012 - 11:19 am
Nobody Else’s Favorites = The most wonderful time of the year.
Seriously, I look forward to these more than your regular Nobody’s Favorites offerings, which is saying quite a bit.
December 4th, 2012 - 12:08 pm
I remember picking up the first ish of The Liberty Project in the bargain bin and was very impressed.
December 4th, 2012 - 2:12 pm
Kurt Busiek put up a link to this on his Facebook fan page yesterday. I think you made his day, Andrew…
December 4th, 2012 - 2:50 pm
My only exposure to the series was the aforementioned About Comics TPB. The series is a ton of fun and different enough from Suicide Squad to be quite enjoyable. Interestingly, the concept is far closer to the Thunderbolts under Jeff Parker than Busiek himself
December 4th, 2012 - 9:26 pm
“doesn’t reinvent the wheel as much as put an engaging spin on it.”
I love this phrase.
LOVE IT!
– MrJM
December 6th, 2012 - 3:18 pm
I read this back in the day and picked up the reprint collection a while back — probably the textbook definition of “shows promise.” I recall Busiek saying that he got paid something like $5 a page for it.
December 8th, 2012 - 12:08 am
I did like this book, after finding most of the Eclipse run in the comics section at a Half Price Books – and Teenagents was at the time also a pretty pleasant read – though it was the only one from Topps Kirbyverse that I read…man, I think the 90s were the time for the launch of new superhero universes, of which it seemed dozens were unleashed upon the world shortly after Image and Valiant’s successes and many shortly before the big comics boom went bust – and we’re including all of the teeny-tiny publishers, shady outfits and shoestring operations that lasted long enough to cough up a couple of issues of a title or two before vanishing without a trace